equality

Definitions

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 4th Edition

n. The state or quality of being equal.

n. Mathematics A statement, usually an equation, that one thing equals another.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License

n. The fact of being equal.

n. (mathematics) The fact of being equal, of having the same value.

n. The equal treatment of people irrespective of social or cultural differences.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English

n. The condition or quality of being equal; agreement in quantity or degree as compared; likeness in bulk, value, rank, properties, etc.

n. Sameness in state or continued course; evenness; uniformity.

n. Evenness; uniformity.

n. Exact agreement between two expressions or magnitudes with respect to quantity; -- denoted by the symbol =; thus, a = x signifies that a contains the same number and kind of units of measure that x does.

from The Century Dictionary and Cyclopedia

n. The state of being equal; identity in magnitude or dimensions, value, qualities, degree, etc.; the state of being neither superior nor inferior, greater nor less, better nor worse, stronger nor weaker, etc., with regard to the thing or things compared.

n. Evenness; uniformity; sameness in state or continued course; equableness: as, equality of surface; an equality of temper or constitution.

n. In other cases, to indicate equality or equivalence of sense: as, Latin gratias = thanks.

n. In a limited use, as in the etymologies of this dictionary, to indicate specifically equality (ultimate identity) of form: as, English two = Latin duo = Greek δύο = Sanskrit dva.

For it is the peculiarity of linear extension that it alone allows its magnitudes to be placed in _absolute_ juxtaposition, or, rather, in coincident position; it alone can test the equality of two magnitudes by observing whether they will coalesce, as two equal mathematical lines do, when placed between the same points; it alone can test _equality_ by trying whether it will become _identity_.

The same order of experiences out of which this general idea of equality is evolved, gives birth at the same time to a more complex idea of equality; or, rather, the process just described generates an idea of equality which further experience separates into two ideas -- _equality of things_ and _equality of relations_.

When therefore the mind is accustomed to these judgments and their corrections, and finds that the same proportion which makes two figures have in the eye that appearance, which we call equality, makes them also correspond to each other, and to any common measure, with which they are compared, we form a mixed notion of equality derived both from the looser and stricter methods of comparison.

When therefore the mind is accustomed to these judgments and their corrections, and finds that the same proportion which makes two figures have in the eye that appearance, which we call equality, makes them also correspond to each other, and to any common measure, with which they are compar'd, we form a mix'd notion of equality deriv'd both from the looser and stricter methods of comparison.